An Overdue Honor for a St. Louis Race Pioneer

An Overdue Honor for a St. Louis Race Pioneer

Article excerpt

My first term in the Missouri House of Representatives was in
1967. I was 26 and new to the job. Of the 34 representatives and
senators from St. Louis city, only two of us were Republicans. Many
of the House members were new, as well, the result of redistricting
caused by the one-man, one-vote decision of the Supreme Court.

It was in the state Senate that St. Louis had experienced
legislators: Mike Kinney, 54 years; Judge John Joynt, 12 years: and
Bob Pentland, 20 years. However, one person stood out among the
group of six senators from St. Louis: T.D. "Ted" McNeal. The first
black senator in Missouri, he had come up the hard way working as a
sleeping car attendant and then an international vice president of
his union. By the time I met him, he was a dignified and respected
senator and strong voice for his constituents and when Ted took the
floor in the Senate, everything stopped and all attention was on
him.

It was from him and these other men that I learned the craft and
pitfalls of legislating. In my second term, Ted came to me and asked
for my support for an innocent-sounding bill, "unit control" for the
St. Louis School District. The problem was that administrative
control of the school district was spread among several departments,
and the superintendent supervised less than half the employees in
the district. Ted's bill would centralize control of the school
district in its chief executive, the superintendent.

The opposition came from the ward committeepeople who controlled
the jobs in the independent building department. While the change
might seem today to be a "best management practice," it was fiercely
opposed. Ted's district encompassed several wards where the
committeepeople had much at stake. Ted told me that efficient
administration of our schools was more important than patronage.
When the bill came to the House, a small group of us supported the
change, and with out-state support the bill passed. At the end of
the session, Ted chose not to run for re-election. The rumor was
that he had lost the support of his committeepeople which he
confirmed to me later.

In 1972, Christopher "Kit" Bond was elected as both the youngest
governor in Missouri's history and the first Republican since 1940. …